Privateers (22 page)

“Look up,” he muttered late one night as he stared at the pictures on the huge screen in his office. “Smile for the camera.”

Within a week he-and the computer-had determined Lucita’s pattern of movements fairly well. She was by no means a creature of habit, he saw. But there were some things she did almost every week. The problem he saw was that her little convertible was never alone for very long. At least two cars almost always accompanied her, one ahead and one behind. Possibly she did not know about her escorts; the Soviets changed cars daily, so that she would not notice the same ones from one day to the next. But Malik was having her followed, either because he wanted to protect her or because he did not trust her.

Dan smiled to himself in the shadows of his darkened office. “I’ll bet the Russian doesn’t trust her,” he muttered. “Why would he have her followed, otherwise? She’s in no danger here; this is her home. What’s there to protect her from-except me?”

The morning dawned hot and clear. Lucita dressed quickly in shorts and halter and hurried down to the small dining room to be certain to catch her father before he finished breakfast and left for his office.

He was just dabbing his damask napkin to his lips, his coffee cup drained, the platter before him holding nothing but crumbs and the rind of a quarter melon.

“Good morning,” Lucita said, beaming at him as if they had never been estranged.

Hernandez almost frowned, a reflex of disapproval at her scanty costume. But he held the scowl in check.

“Good morning, Lucita.”

She perched on a corner of the heavy, stiff-backed chair at her father’s right hand. “It is a beautiful morning, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” he answered warily, almost suspiciously.

“Father”-she reached for his hand-“we have been angry with each other long enough. What is past is past, and we cannot change it.”

A surprised smile unbent his lips.

“1 am finished mourning for Teresa,” she went on. “Actually, I was mourning for myself, I think. I was being a spoiled, stubborn child. I ask you to forgive me, Papa. I want you to love me again.”

Hernandez drew in a deep, delighted breath. “I have always loved you, Lucita. Even when you caused me pain.”

“I’m sorry for that, Papa.” Her eyes dropped.

He reached out and lifted her chin slightly, so that he could look directly into her eyes again. “It must have been painful for you, also.”

“Yes, it was.”

“Can you truly put it all behind you?”

“Yes. I want to.”

He studied her for a long, wordless moment. “Last night, you went to dinner with Vasily again?”

With a little smile, she replied, “He visits every other week, he asks me to dinner each night he is here, and I accept his invitation every time.”

Hernandez arched an eyebrow. “Like a dutiful daughter.”

“I will be more than dutiful from now on,” she promised. “If he still wants to marry me, and you still want me to, 1 will agree.”

She had thought that her father would be elated by her decision. But his face was somber, his flat brown eyes held no spark of joy.

“When you were in Russia, and then at Kosmograd, did Malik … was he a gentleman at all times?”

Lucita laughed. “A perfect gentleman. And he still is. Sometimes I wish he weren’t. …” The laughter died off. “Papa, this is a political marriage for him, too. Perhaps we

can learn to love each other; I think he genuinely is attracted to me. But …”

“Are you attracted to him?”

She started to reply, hesitated, then shook her head. “No. Not the way a romantic schoolgirl wants to feel. Not with the kind of passion that makes a woman behave foolishly.”

“But you agree to marry him?”

Lucita wanted to ask, What choice do I have? Where can I go in the world that I can escape from him? How can I avoid him when my own father has offered me to him?

Instead, she replied meekly, “Yes, Papa, I will marry him. And bear his children. And live in Moscow or some Asian desert or even on Mars, if that’s where his career takes him.”

She wanted her father to be taken aback by that, to falter, to show some slight discomfort at the idea that he might never see his daughter again. But he did not even blink an eye. He took both her hands in his and held them firmly.

“You will learn to be happy with him, Lucita. I know you will.”

She saw the vision in his eyes: not his daughter’s future, far from home and family. It was his own future that Hernandez was foreseeing: president of the Republic of Venezuela. And then, who knows, perhaps with the help of the Soviet Union he would make Venezuela the most powerful nation in the Western Hemisphere.

Lucita pulled her hands free and ran from the dining room, leaving her father happily dreaming his dreams, oblivious to his daughter’s needs.

She returned to her bedroom only long enough to grab the tiger-striped beach bag, then dashed down the back stairs to the garage, threw the bag onto the seat beside her and roared off for the beach in her MG. Reaching into the glove compartment as she swung the convertible out of the tree-shaded driveway and headed for the main highway, Lucita pulled on a pair of sunglasses. She pressed the gas pedal to the floor and the nimble little car leaped ahead, weaving from one lane to another as Lucita passed everything on the road. A pair of dark sedans tried to keep up with her for a few miles, but she outpaced them and soon left them far behind.

The wind felt good pulling at her hair, the air was clear and clean. She never noticed the unmarked helicopter droning high above, its tiny video camera aimed squarely at her.

She drove to the beach club, changed into a white string bikini that would have made her father frown his darkest and let one of the beach boys set up a chair and umbrella for her on the warm white sand. She stretched out on the reclining chair, soaking up the sun and staring at the gentle surf that curled in, wave after wave, endlessly. As gentle and relentless as Vasily, she thought.

It was quite a surprise to her when Dan Randolph came walking straight up to her, rising out of the sea like some ancient water god and trudging through the sand directly to where she sat.

“Good morning,” he said, dripping. Lucita had forgotten what a hard-muscled body he had. The water sluiced down his arms, his legs, his flat belly, darkening his body hair.

“What are you doing here?” Lucita blurted.

“I’ve come to invite you to lunch,” he said, grinning down at her. “First an invigorating swim, and then a pleasant lunch … at sea.”

He pointed seaward and Lucita saw a trim little sloop riding at anchor out beyond the breakers. It was painted sky blue and gold.

“It’s too early for lunch,” she said.

With a laugh, he said, “Not if you have to catch it first!” He reached out his hand, and before she even thought about it, she lifted hers and allowed him to clasp it and pull her up to her feet.

“My bag …” she said.

“No problem.” Reaching into the waistband of his skintight briefs, Dan pulled out a pencil-slim roll of clear plastic. It opened up into a thin flexible pouch big enough to take Lucita’s handbag.

“We manufacture this stuff up in orbit,” he told her. “Solocrystal is the trade name. Amazing stuff. Waterproof, too.”

He took her hand again and they trotted to the water, waded in, then dived over a breaking wave. Side by side they swam to Dan’s sloop. Lucita saw the name stenciled across her stern: Yanqui.

She stretched out on the forward deck to let the sun dry her, but soon turned and propped her head up on one hand, watching fascinated as Dan set the sails and hauled up the anchor: all with the help of computer-directed servo motors. The big dazzling sails filled with wind and the graceful ship bit into the water, nosing away from the beach and out to sea.

Dan broke out light fishing tackle, beckoned Lucita back to the cockpit and baited the hook for her.

“You catch us some lunch while I mind the radar,” he said. “I want to make sure your Russian friends aren’t following us close enough to eavesdrop.”

“My …” Lucita’s eyes widened. “What do you mean?”

She looked genuinely surprised. “Don’t you know that Malik has a team of people following you whenever you leave your house?”

“No! I don’t believe it.”

Shrugging, Dan said, “It’s true.”

Lucita turned away from him and angrily cast the fishing line into the sea. Dan checked the display screen: radar showed no boats or planes suspiciously nearby; sonar gave no echoes of underwater craft. The horizon looked clear and bright, the sky as brazen as hammered brass. He had forgotten how quiet it could be on a sailboat, with nothing but the wind in your ears, and the slap of the waves against the hull. Even in space there was always the hum of electrical equipment or the whir of air fans. Silence up there meant quick death. Here, it was a pleasure.

She was no fisherman, Dan found. Lucita quickly hooked something; it would be hard not to, this far out. Her line bowed and she shrieked happily. He went to help her. She was excited but hadn’t the faintest idea of what to do next. Under Dan’s guidance she reeled in her catch. He netted it and brought it flopping and flapping onto the deck: a nice-sized sea trout.

“I’ll clean it and you cook it, okay?” he suggested.

She gave him a waif’s sorry, almost frightened expression. “I have never cooked a fish.”

Dan pretended to scowl. “All right. I’ll clean it and I’ll cook it. How’s that?”

“Who will sail the boat while you do?”

“The computer,” Dan replied carelessly. “Trims the sails better than I ever could.”

“Is there something I could do?” she asked.

He jabbed a thumb toward the hatch that led down into the galley. “Find the fridge and open a bottle of white wine. Glasses are in the cabinet above it.”

Lucita hesitated.

“You do know how to use a corkscrew.”

“I think so.”

“Give it a try. If you get cork in the wine, I’ll have to make you walk the plank.”

She opened the galley hatch and ducked down into the darkness below.

There was cork in the wine, but not enough for Dan to complain about. They feasted on the broiled fish and frozen beans and carrots that Lucita thawed in the galley’s microwave oven.

“I understand you’re seeing a good deal of Comrade Malik,” he said after the first glass of wine had gone down.

“Yes. Vasily comes here every chance he gets.”

“To see you.”

She nodded. Doesn’t look too happy about it, Dan thought. Watching her as she sat on the padded bench that ran across the back of the cockpit, the Caribbean wind playing with her dark thick hair, he thought briefly of what fun it would be to sail on for days, for months, never setting eyes on land, just sailing the Spanish Main like the buccaneers of old with this lovely Latin prize as his beautiful prisoner.

He reached for the wine bottle, slanted in a frost-covered electronic chiller. Don’t be a romantic idiot, old boy, he told himself. This is a business trip. Tax deductible and all that. Keep your mind on business.

“You don’t blame Malik for what happened-”

“No, I don’t,” she snapped before he could finish the sentence. “Vasily was very supportive, very helpful. The men who killed Teresa are being punished severely.”

“The Gulag,” Dan said.

“The mines on the Moon,” she said, as if correcting him.

“I suppose I’ll end up there someday.”

“You? Why would you be arrested by the Russians?”

Watching her face carefully as he spoke, Dan said, “They’ll find some reason, sooner or later. They don’t want anybody operating in space but themselves.”

“Are you doing anything against the law?”

Grinning, “Everyday.”

“Truly?”

“Lucita, dear child, it’s impossible to do anything that makes a profit that isn’t against some law they’ve written, somewhere.”

“But the Russians would never arrest you. They have no reason to. Do they?”

He shrugged. “Has Malik ever spoken about me? Has he discussed my operations at the Nueva Venezuela factory with your father?”

“No,” she replied, shaking her head. “Not that I know of.”

“Are you going to marry him?” Dan heard himself ask. He had not intended to; the words came from his lips before he had thought about them.

“Yes.”

Just the one word. Without a smile. Without any trace of joy or anticipation or any warmth at all.

“But you don’t love him,” Dan said.

Her chin went up a stubborn notch. “How do you know who I love and who I do not love?”

“You do love him?”

“That is my affair, and not yours.”

Dan pursed his lips. Then, “So you’re going to marry him, whether you love him or not.”

“I am going to marry him.”

“Why?”

He saw turmoil in her eyes. A molten flow of conflicting emotions. Then she sat up straighter, as if forcing herself to regain control of her passions.

“He is the only man who has asked me,” she answered coldly, almost mockingly. “After all, I am not getting any younger.”

“And neither is your father,” Dan said. “He wants to be president of Venezuela pretty damned badly, doesn’t he?”

Anger flashed in Lucita’s eyes, but before she could respond, the emergency beeper on the radio pulsed its shrill signal. Dan spun around in his swiveled deck chair and hit the audio switch.

“Randolph here,” he said.

“Dan, it’s Pete Weston.” The lawyer’s voice sounded agitated, frightened.

Dan touched the scrambler button, but it popped back up to normal mode. Weston was not scrambling the signal; he was speaking in the open, where anyone could hear him and understand. Dan frowned. Usually the lawyer scrambled even the most routine communications.

“What is it, Pete?”

“We just got a kind of garbled transmission from Dolphin One. They’ve been boarded by Russians!”